Rookie Mistakes



The biggest difference between an intern and someone that has just passed out is that there is no room for error once you start practicing on your own. You are responsible for any mistake that you make. And any mistake can always land up in legal problems if you are unfortunate enough.

No matter how much you read, nothing beats experience. Seeing a case at least once will help you react better - faster, calmer and more efficiently than if you are seeing it for the first time. Practicing at various casualties over the past few months had provided me with a certain degree of confidence. But all of that counts for little when you see something you're not familiar with.

So a few days back when a patient came with a history of trauma followed by what appeared to be quadriparesis, I made a rookie mistake of not immediately placing a large bore iv line. I had read about neurogenic shock before of course but somehow that had not struck my mind immediately. And as with most trauma cases, quite a few bystanders had come along and this only increases the pressure when you're not sure. My mind wandered towards taking radiographs of local areas to rule out fractures instead of initiating the treatment I should have done because initial vitals were normal.

Of course, when the Ortho professor came around, he was not best pleased with my management and rightly so. It was a bad mistake. A mistake I don't plan on making again. Thankfully, the patient did not go into neurogenic shock but that's not the point. Just because something did not go wrong doesn't mean it won't the next time. Medicine is all about anticipating and preventing complications before they occur, not waiting and reacting once it happens.

As a young doctor, you will learn to appreciate criticism from seniors, even if it may sound rude. It is simply how we learn and improve. An MBBS degree does not make one perfect. We must constantly learn from our mistakes and raise our standards to what is expected from us. 


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